Academic Master

Education

Reflection Paper for the Field Work

Summary of Experience

My twelve hours of fieldwork were well spent at the 14th & Chestnut Community Center. The experience did not only provide me with an opportunity to learn about the people at the place but it also made me do a self-reflection about different aspects of learning and life in general. The people I interacted with for most of my time at the center were those who fall under the age bracket of adolescents. During that period, I was able to know some of the challenges faced by most teenagers in their day to day lives and how they deal with them. I was also able to share some of my ways of handling different issues, and also learn how other people handle them.

Brief Description of the Center

14th & Chestnut Community Center is a non-profit Christian organization which organizes and conducts various activities involving children in the local community. As stated in its mission, the community center promotes spiritual, physical as well as educational needs of children through its various programs. This consequently ensures that children are provided with a good environment for growth and development. The center seeks to guide the community in the right way by influencing the most vulnerable population, which are the adolescents and emerging adults.

Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

This means that if the society is not careful about how the adolescents and emerging adults fare, the results could be apocalyptic. An example of a situation which needs the attention of adults is the ability of the adolescents to share their problems with other people (Arnett, 2017). For the female members of this fraction, they could be reluctant to share due to the fear of being embarrassed. On the other hand, in most societies, male members of this fraction practice a habit of keeping their problems to themselves under the belief that it makes them strong.

Such a habit could be helpful at some point, for example, it could prevent a person from being traumatized or losing self-esteem due to embarrassing moments. However, the culture is more detrimental. This is because one of the challenges faced by this population is decision making. If a person makes one wrong decision and due to the culture of keeping things to them fails to correct it, it could ruin their lives. The community center in which I did my field work creates a friendly environment where people can freely share their problems. In addition, the center runs programs which promote teamwork, sharing and trust. This enables those taking part in the programs to bond, creating a good environment for the sharing of personal problems and offering solutions. In the case where two children cannot handle a certain challenge, they can reach to the officials for counseling. The officials were very friendly, which makes it easy for the students to freely approach them anytime.

Effects of Culture on Development

Culture determines how a person views self, other people and everything around them. The process of understanding oneself starts with self-examination (Arnett, 2017). This allows people to know their strengths and weaknesses. This is then followed by an evaluation of other people to know how they are and what makes them different from self. The final stage of this process is assessing how other people view the person. For most adolescents and emerging adults, however, they run the risk of doing the opposite of the process.

It is common for members of this fraction to examine self by looking at how other people view them. This is very dangerous and it could ruin a person’s life because people are different. While some people, based on their culture, may hate or despise a certain characteristic, some people may have no problem with it or they may even fancy it. The community center in discussion has several programs which promote the recognition and appreciation of self.

This ensures that people know their strengths and weaknesses use the strengths to serve others and accept their weaknesses, because no man is an island. The center encourages the culture of accepting one’s weaknesses through several activities which require teamwork. The center practices a culture of where one is weak, another one offer support while the person offers support where the other person is weak. This culture leads to the prevalence of love, peace and harmony, where no one feels inferior or superior to another person.

Vocational Education

Among the teenagers whom I interacted with at the center, some of them were working at different sections in the center, including but not limited to the food pantry. The importance of vocational education is that it equips the persons involved with extra skills which not only increase their understanding in school but it also helps them in deciding which professions to attach themselves with in future (Arnett, 2017).

Conclusion

In conclusion, my experience at 14th & Chestnut Community Center has enabled me to understand how to handle some of the challenges experienced by adolescents and emerging adults, knowledge which will be very helpful to me and other people, now and in future.

References

Arnett, J. (2017). Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach (6th Ed) . Pearson.

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